FROM THIS EPISODE

The latest Census reveals a lot about America's population and how it's changing. Will the growth of so-called "minorities" produce a "white identity crisis" or will future generations construct a "post-racial" America? How will demographics affect politics? Also, radioactive water from Japan's nuclear plant threatens to spill into sea, and despite slow economic recovery, corporate profits are setting records.

Banner image: Pedestrians in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, Florida. According to figures released by the Census Bureau , the whites population has grown, but not as fast as Latinos or Asians. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Some 27,000 people are now dead or missing and 240,000 homeless in the aftermath of Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami, and the nuclear crisis may take months to resolve. Dangers reported today are a high level of radioactivity in pools of water in underground tunnels and small amounts of plutonium in the soil outside the Fukushima nuclear complex. Matt Wald reports for the New York Times.

The official Census of the United States happens every ten years and, even though annual estimates keep demographers updated, it's a chance for the rest of us to check the mirror and see what we look like. Results from the 2010 Census indicate that the white population has grown in the US, but not as fast as Latinos and Asians. In less than 40 years, whites won't be the majority any more. The Latino growth is a function of birthrate, not immigration. Blacks are still about 12 percent, and they're moving back to the South and out to the suburbs. What will these revelations mean politically? How will they impact the makeup of Congress and President Obama's chances for re-election?

After the worst recession since the Great Depression, and despite an agonizingly slow recovery, 2010 corporate profits grew by 36.8 percent, the biggest gain since 1950. Fast-growing profits would seem to contradict all the signs of an underperforming economy, especially an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent. The US Chamber of Commerce says it's all about "economic anomalies." Kevin Hall is National Economics Correspondent for the McClatchy Newspapers.